Practically Family
by ficlicious
Summary: Somewhere in the middle of Tennessee, after being blown up and nearly drowning and flying unconscious halfway across the country, Tony remembers that he isn't alone anymore after all. Picks up in Iron Man 3 after the Mandarin destroys the Malibu mansion, and diverges from there. Because there was a payphone, and Pepper wasn't the only one Tony could call for help.
1. A Texaco in Tennessee

He hasn't slept in days. Maybe weeks. The quacks at SHIELD's medical division diagnosed him with PTSD, an understandable reaction to suffocating to death, alone, in some corner of space that might not even be in this universe.

Nothing prepared him for a fall from a dimensional rift. Or the alien invasion. Or Norse gods. Or Captain Fucking America.

For that matter, nothing prepared him for dying of palladium poisoning, only to be saved at the last moment by Howard Fucking Stark's cast-off ideas. Even the rush of adrenaline from _synthesizing a new goddamn element out of scraps and a prototype Captain America shield_ was somewhat lessened by the sour taste of following in his old man's footsteps. Or maybe that had been the heavy metal poisoning in the back of his throat.

Nothing had prepared him for being tortured in Afghanistan for months either. Having his chest cut open, no anesthetic of course, and having a glorified car battery sunk into the place his breastbone used to be. The razor edge he'd lived on for weeks without end, constantly asking himself _is this the day I die? How many more days until I die?_ And killing, actually killing with his own two hands, the tech responding not to some drone operator or pilot flying on a general's orders, but to _his_ commands. He didn't think he'd ever get those images out of his head.

His life, pretty relentlessly, for the past few years has been a glorious shit-show, with dancing chorus girls and fireworks exploding trauma all over his brain. So yeah. It's fucking _understandable_.

It's understandable if he can't sleep. It's understandable if he has panic attacks. It's understandable if he prowls restless in the lab, initializing upgrade after upgrade until the servos are ready to fry. It's understandable if the only thing that keeps him steady is medically inadvisable amounts of caffeine.

It might even be understandable that he invited a terrorist to attack his home. No, not invited. Challenged. Threw down the gauntlet. _Dared_ him to do it. No sane person would invite a terrorist to attack their home, of course, but the last person to call Tony sane might have been the pediatrician at his birth.

Pepper would never forgive him. And that's probably the most under-fucking-standable thing of all.

He wakes up with the alarm ringing in his ears, tasting blood and sweat, and blearily opens his eyes. JARVIS's voice is raised in concern, and it takes him a moment to realize that he hasn't woken in his bed, or his lab, and that the blue and red holograms in his field of vision aren't the technical specs floating above his workspace, and it's not the light from his arc reactor either. It's the HUD of his armor. It's a road in a field covered with snow and trees and oh shit he's going to—

He plows a furrow any team of oxen would be proud of, felling trees and throwing up sheets of snow and frozen soil as the world spins like a top. His stomach spins and he manages to hold down his lunch ( _his medically inadvisable amounts of caffeine_ ) as the suit slams down one final time and the sickening lurch stops.

JARVIS's frantic presence disappears, and the suit goes dark. He hauls the faceplate off, eyes rolling, voice shrill and calling for his AI. There's no answer. He has no idea where he is, or even how he got here, and panic surges, bile and the sting of regurgitated coffee in the back of his throat before he swallows it back down. For a man who has never felt claustrophobia, for a man who has never felt at home anywhere like he does in the Iron Man armors, the suit is suddenly too tight, too close, and he has to get out of it.

There's just enough power left to open the suit and he scrambles out of it, shivering as the cold seeps in. He dressed for California winter, nothing but a tee-shirt and jeans. He's in the middle of fucking _nowhere_ and it's snowing and there isn't enough power to check his email, let alone track his flight records. For one moment, he entertains the notion that he died at the bottom of the ocean after all, and this is a frozen hell designed especially for him. No WiFi, no cell signal, nothing but the arc reactor lighting his way through the flurries.

He says it's brisk, mostly to hear his own voice because it always reassures him that he's still alive. But it isn't brisk. It's actually _really fucking cold_ and he can't stay here because he'll freeze to death. If he'd known he was going to end up in the middle of a field in Kentucky or Idaho or Virginia or wherever the hell JARVIS flew him while he was unconscious, he would have worn a parka. Did he own a parka? He had to own a parka, right? Except his parkas were probably in New York and he'd been in California so it wouldn't really have helped him anyway.

How is this even his life anymore?

Oh right. Pretty relentlessly a glorious shit-show. That's how it's his life.

 **oOoOoOo**

The Texaco station looks like something the '50s spat out. It's all peeling paint and quaintly retro signs and normally, he'd avoid it like the plague, but beggars can't be choosers and honestly? Right now? It's right up there, vying with Pepper (or Steve) for the prettiest goddamn thing he's ever seen.

There's even a painted Indian on the verandah, and even his give-no-shits brain thinks _Holy fuck, that's the most racist thing I've ever heard of, and I have a friend who literally punched Nazis._ It's wearing a poncho, which he's almost sobbingly grateful to see. He steals the poncho, pulling it over his head with a glee he usually only reserves for nights in the lab, or dates with Pepper. ( _Pepper's never going to forgive him, but he can't think about that right now_.) Normally, he wouldn't be caught dead in the rough, likely-never-meant-for-human-garmenting cloth, but it's that or literally die.

The station is locked tight, but there's a phone booth. He pauses for a moment, sitting on the shoulder of the dead, silent armor he dragged he doesn't even know how many miles through the freezing snow, and stares in wonder at it. He doesn't remember the last time he saw a phone booth – he's pretty sure they've been exterminated with prejudice from the streets of New York – but he's deep enough in sleep debt that he half expects Bill and Ted to spill out of it, playing air-guitar.

His first call is to Pepper, but he gets her voice mail. Belatedly, he thinks that her phone is probably at the bottom of the Pacific, along with the rest of his West Coast belongings, and it's probably going to be awhile before she has the mental wherewithal to get a new phone or check her mailbox, but he leaves her a message anyway. _I'm sorry I nearly got you killed, but hey, I'm alive so that's something, right? Haha, I'm so sorry._

Words really aren't enough, no matter how many he uses in which combinations. Feeling perfectly inadequate, he hangs the receiver back up. He leans his head against the cold box of the phone and closes his eyes. The world spins around him, and bile-coffee-mucus rises in the back of his throat again. He's so tired and he doesn't want to break into the station. He needs help, but he doesn't even know where he is and who the hell else is he going to call anyway? Rhodey's overseas, and Happy is in the hospital and Pepper is probably never going to speak to him again and JARVIS isn't answering him because the suit is dead. He wishes he had Bruce. Bruce would know what to do. Bruce would know who to call.

His eyes snap open. He's a fucking idiot. He can call _Bruce_. Science Bros for life to the rescue. Except he gets Bruce's voicemail too, meaning Jolly Green is either down in the lab, sound asleep in his bed, or is halfway around the world running from his problems in third-world hellholes. He leaves him a message too, just on the off-chance he's in the john or something, and reels off the number of the payphone, helpfully printed under the receiver.

But now that he's remembered one Avenger, he remembers the others, and he snatches the receiver up to dial Natasha's phone. Which, according to the helpful robot lady, is no longer in service. He doesn't think he ever got Barton's phone. Fury's too paranoid to have a phone Tony can access without JARVIS to hack it for him. Agent Agent is dead.

"Goddammit," he grumbles, and reminding himself that beggars cannot be choosers when they are _freezing to death_ and in the middle of absolutely nowhere, he punches a number from memory and listens to the phone ring. He can almost imagine the national anthem playing on the other end as it rings twice, three times, and then there's an answer.

" _Rogers_."

He doesn't open his eyes, but he pictures Steve on the other end. Probably sitting on his crappy bed in his crummy little SHIELD-approved apartment, with that quizzical look on his face. In Tony's mind, he's wearing the suit, because he probably doesn't even take it off to shower. This is a terrible idea, and Tony should hang up now.

" _Hello_?"

He sighs. "Hi Cap," he says.

 _"Tony?! The news said you were dead! Your house-"_

"Yeah, hi." It's lame and it's weird, but the rest of the words stick in his throat in a giant lump that tastes like stale coffee and shame. No, it's not lame and weird, it's fucking _ridiculous_ , because he's freezing to death at a Texaco station in a winter wasteland hell, and he can't unfuck his brain or his pride enough to ask Captain America for help. But he's so tired and cold and, honestly, he'd just like to sit back and have someone ride to his rescue for once, even though he probably doesn't deserve it. He gets himself into these messes, and he should get himself out, shouldn't he?

There's silence at the other end as he belatedly realizes he's said _all of that out loud_. He has the horrible sense that maybe he should just hang up now before Captain America can tell him that he's not coming. Maybe he can find someone in some Podunk town nearby who'll let him crash in a garage or something for the night, feed him a sandwich or maybe be smart enough to provide him with semi-skilled assistance in getting the suit ready again and _is he still rambling all this aloud_?

" _Yes_." There's amusement and concern and a whole lot of Steve's particular brand of… Tony's never quite sure what that tone means. Warmth? Exasperation? Resignation? All of the above?

The answer is, because of course it is, " _All of the above_." Tony resists the urge to bang his head against the ancient payphone, because a) he doesn't need the line to decide percussive engineering is enough to cut it off, and b) because he also doesn't need a headache on top of everything else. Well. More of a headache than the one he already has. " _Where are you? I can have a quinjet in the air in ten minutes._ "

"I don't know. I wasn't exactly conscious when I faceplanted in a forest. If you can get to the Tower, JARVIS can track the phone number." He reels it off again, and he can hear the rustle of paper, the scratch of a pencil, as Steve scribbles it down.

 _"Got the number. JARVIS is running it now. Are you alright? Are you safe?"_

Tony lets out a bark of laughter, and it spirals up into heaving hysterics of laughter until he's crying with it, because it's the most hilarious question he's ever heard. Is he alright? Is he _safe_? Only Captain Fucking America could think to ask that when he's at a _Texaco_ of all goddamn places on a two-lane road in the winter with dead armor and a house that got blown up by a terrorist in broad freaking daylight. "Peachy," he croaks, and there's a lump in his throat, and the world feels just a little bit more distant than it did two minutes ago. "Except for the hypothermia. I'm pretty sure it's hypothermia."

 _"We're on the way, Tony. JARVIS says you're in Tennessee. We'll be there in thirty minutes. Just stay where you are. Find somewhere warm. Stay awake."_ Steve is all Cap now, firm commands that must be obeyed. Simple words, easy to understand. Good news for Tony, who is beginning to feel like his brain is about to give up. Simple words are best.

He hangs up the phone without saying goodbye, prying icy fingers from the receiver, and backs out of the phone booth, nearly tripping over the leg of his armor but catching himself in time. The snow is coming down harder now, and Tony can't stay out on the porch, not even for thirty minutes. He stares, hard, at the station, watching the string of Christmas lights in the window blink on and off, on and off, and he has to blink himself out of the daze it lulls him into.

He's debating breaking the glass on the door, unlocking it and dragging his armor inside, because Steve told him to get somewhere warm, and it's the only semi-warm place, and he can totally spin his vandalism into a convincing argument that Captain America told him to break and enter for his own survival. He doesn't get much further than that before exhaustion drags him to the wooden planks of the verandah and his eyes slide closed.

 _Gotta stay awake. Help is on the way._ It's his last thought before the darkness swirls him under.


	2. A Tower in Midtown

Steve thinks long and hard about moving into the tower. He's been thinking long and hard for weeks. Months. Every waking moment he's sitting in his apartment, staring at the bare walls and the drab ceiling, he's thinking about moving into the tower.

It isn't the futuristic architecture that makes him hesitate. He's always loved the way the city grows and changes to reflect human advancement, and Stark Tower – Avengers Tower now, he supposes – is no different.

It isn't that it's a final move, a commitment he might not be ready for. It isn't. Whether he commits to the Avengers full time or not – and honestly, what else was he going to do? He may have finished high school, but his accreditation is so far out of date he should probably just start school all over again right from kindergarten – he doesn't have to live in the Tower at all. SHIELD gave him an apartment in Brooklyn. He spends as little time in it as possible, preferring public libraries, museums or just running in parks to avoid the sinking loneliness and isolation that overtakes him in that place. But it's his, and he keeps it in reserve.

It isn't even that he's a man out of time. He knows the rest of his team think of him as hopelessly lost in a decade that came and went seventy years ago, but it isn't that he hates technology or that he fears change. It's that he's missed _seven decades_ of cultural evolution, and sometimes it's overwhelming when he sits and thinks about all he's going to have to internalize in order to catch up.

It's the fact that it's Tony's place, and Steve isn't sure if he wants to live in the shadow of Tony Stark yet.

Tony is… Tony is something that Steve can't really get a handle on. The others might be new colleagues and comrades, but there's a familiarity with them that soothes his nerves. Natasha and Clint are SHIELD agents. They know how to accomplish a mission, they know how to follow a chain of command. Bruce has never been military (except for the part where the military thinks they own him), but the artificial calm floating on top of the endless wells of compassion and rage oddly remind him of Erskine, so that's familiar too. He doesn't really understand Thor, except for the fundamentals, but Thor's an alien.

Tony… Tony is nothing like Howard, except in superficial appearance and brief flashes of arrogant brilliance. He supposes Tony might have learned some of his mannerisms from Howard too, because Tony has the same square of shoulder, the same loose stance, the same bravado when arguing. The same penchant to reach for a glass, a bottle of something, when tension spikes. The same intensity of focus when working on a project, eyes wide, forehead furrowed, fingers dancing over metal and circuits.

Okay. Maybe Tony's more like Howard than Steve originally thought.

Howard wasn't ever as generous, though. Howard liked to flaunt his wealth, his status, his genius, a sharpness and egotism behind it that revealed the ulterior motive. Howard was a showboat, motoring through the waters with all the confidence that came from being a self-made man in a society of old money, his grand gestures always couched in a sense of look-at-me, aren't-I-special.

Tony's doesn't do that. Oh, the arrogance is there, the egotism, but Tony wears it like armor, not a lifestyle. Tony is the kind of man to make some ridiculous gesture, like invite half a dozen mostly-strangers to move into his high-tech, secure center of East Coast business while eating shawarma in the middle of a half-destroyed Midtown, sparing no expense to renovate and furnish on the _off-chance_ one of them took him up on the offer, and then quietly, ever so quietly, shows he pays attention to their likes and dislikes by creating the perfect space, the perfect havens, for each one of them. (He's seen the gym on the floor Tony put aside for him, reinforced _everything_ that's guaranteed to give even a super-soldier a proper workout. He's seen the suite of rooms Tony designated as his. Space and light and cool colors and nothing flashy, heavy-duty furniture and nothing ostentatious.) Shows that he cares, really _cares_ , by replacing their weapons and armor with upgraded, advanced tech that even the military is probably twenty years behind, and then acting like he doesn't know what they're talking about when they try to thank him for it.

Steve's a simple man at heart. He believes in reciprocity, especially where friends and favors are concerned. Growing up in the Depression has left him with a deep appreciation for luxuries, like books and sugar and an endless supply of art pencils. New clothes. Never-used-before furniture. His mother's apartment – and, later, his hole in the wall with Bucky – had been warm and homey, but shabby by anyone's standards, with patchwork curtains and threadbare furniture and second-hand clothing. Anything new, never used, never worn, never handed down after the previous owner was done with it, should be met with heartfelt thanks and appreciation. But Tony doesn't do appreciation, and it leaves Steve grasping for ground in how to approach and talk to him.

He has a sneaking suspicion that Tony's a simple man at heart too, despite the endless parade of lavish materialism he displays. Steve's seen Tony in three thousand dollar suits, driving million-dollar cars, drinking scotch and bourbon and buying out entire restaurants in order to ensure quiet, private meals… but he's also seen Tony wearing faded, department store band tees and jeans with holes in the knees, smeared with motor oil and blasting music that even Steve knows was new twenty, thirty years ago, and he knows that's how Tony is happiest.

He just can't reconcile all the different layers, the different faces, Tony shows to the world. He's never sure which one he's going to get. The unrepentant playboy? The snarky, prickly billionaire? The arrogant engineer? The hero who, despite Steve's initial snap judgements, is completely prepared to sacrifice everything he is for the benefit of others? The rarely-seen vulnerable man at the core of all of those conflicting personas? How can he talk to a man who shifts like mercury in mid-sentence?

Well… He isn't going to find out holed up and miserable in Brooklyn. In the end, even the uneasy thought of living in Tony Stark's shadow isn't going to dissuade him from doing what he knows in the pit of his stomach, in the center of his heart, is the right thing to do.

He packs up his stuff, which doesn't even fill his SHIELD-issue duffle, and moves into Avengers Tower six weeks before Christmas.

 **oOoOoOo**

No one would believe him, but Steve loves living in the tower. Sometimes, he finds it unnerving, because there's so much _space,_ but he never feels alone. JARVIS is a constant presence; there's a hum in the air even when he is silent that fills the empty corners and makes the place feel lived-in and welcoming. But JARVIS is rarely silent; in the AI, Steve has found an instructor in modern life who never grows impatient with his lack of knowledge, just seeks to correct it.

No one would believe him, but living in the tower has given Steve the cherished feeling that, after all this time, so disconnected from the age that he should have lived, he might have somewhere he belongs. Somewhere he can take care of the people who, as strange and recent their relationships, are practically family.

He can go days without seeing Bruce, but that's because Bruce is just like Tony once he gets in the lab, forgetting that there's a world beyond his work stations and bubbling chemistry sets and holographic displays. He tries to make a point to bring a platter of sandwiches down once a day, just to make sure Bruce can graze when he's hungry.

More often, he shares early meals with Natasha and Clint, the latter hollow-eyed and haunted more often than not, the former a fierce and protective shadow over his shoulder. Steve cooks every day, whether he sees his teammates or not, mostly for something to do with his time, but also because it gives him a sense of purpose. His mother taught him to cook, good hearty food, and he always makes enough to feed an army, wrapping leftovers on plates and storing them in the cavernous refrigerator in the communal kitchen.

He misses Tony, or rather, misses the opportunity to try and get to know Tony. JARVIS informs him that Sir left on November the first for his California home, and won't return until after the New Year. Steve tries calling him a couple of times, but Tony never picks up and never calls back.

Two weeks before Christmas, Steve decides to decorate his suite, like he and his mother used to do. He hasn't had a proper Christmas since before the war. Steve is sure there are cheap, modern alternatives for decorations, but doesn't really recognize the commercial extravaganza the holiday has become, and he knows how to make paper garland and how to string popcorn. He's having fun with the flour paste and the food coloring in the kitchen when all hell breaks loose.

There's a crash from the den, accompanied by a strangled cry Steve has only heard once before in his life, when Bruce transformed unwillingly into the Hulk on the helicarrier. His head jerks up, orienting for a moment, and he's vaulting the counter with his hands full of flour paste, and nearly crashes into Bruce, who is reeling from the room clutching his chest. Steve skids to a halt beside him, holding out a hand, but Bruce swats it aside. Steve has one moment to see the green bleeding into Bruce's eyes and skin before Bruce hunches away, staggering for the elevator.

Steve stares after him, flour paste dripping off his hands onto the floor, unsure if he should follow. The elevator opens with alacrity and Bruce disappears inside, and Steve remembers that Tony made Bruce a room where he could contain the Hulk. What happened that he-

"Cap." Clint's voice breaks him from his thoughts, and he turns. Clint is ashen, but expressionless. Behind him, the TV is playing a scene over and over again of a mansion exploding under missile fire, sliding over a cliff and into the ocean. The mansion looks familiar, but he can't place it until Clint says, in that horrible hollow tone of his, "Cap, it's Tony."

 **oOoOoOo**

The next few hours don't pass in a blur, they pass in excruciating detail. The tea set Bruce dropped is still broken on the floor, the dark stain of his tea drying. Distantly, there are howls and banging, and Steve numbly assumes Bruce got to the containment room before the Hulk tore loose of his skin in rage and grief.

The news is playing nothing but a reel of the events leading up to the destruction of Tony's mansion. Steve hadn't been paying attention to the news in the last little while, so he missed the coverage of the Mandarin's attacks. The station replays the footage over and over as he and Clint sit side-by-side on the sofa, silent. There's a shot of the devastation – the ticker at the bottom identifying it as live coverage – as fire crews and police tape off the area, test the stability of the wreckage.

The entire house is gone. TONY STARK, PRESUMED DEAD blazes across the screen, and Steve feels something terrible and intangible crumble around him. He floats in a sea of terrifying numbness, and something in his chest hurts as if it had been physically wrenched apart. His flour-caked hands open and close, drum on his knee, twist around each other as if trying to find something to do that will fix this and make it go away. The list of dead comrades in the graveyard of his mind gains another headstone.

Bruce's phone shrills and buzzes across the coffee table, and both Clint and Steve leap nearly off the couch at the volume. It goes silent after a bit.

Then Steve's phone rings, the tinny blare of a trumpet playing "The Star-Spangled Banner", and he fumbles it out of his pocket, trying not to think that Tony had set his ringtone as a joke and Steve couldn't figure out how to undo it.

The caller ID lists a long-distance number. Steve doesn't know who'd be calling him now, unless it's Pepper or Natasha or maybe Thor's girlfriend, Jane? Maybe Thor?

The national anthem starts again. He presses the Answer button and lifts the phone to his ear, and is astonished by how normal his voice sounds when he says, "Rogers."

For a moment, there's no reply, just static and the sound of breathing and blowing wind. From the corner of his eye, he sees Clint watching him with hyper focus. "Hello?"

" _Yeah, hi."_

Steve's chest freezes at the slurred words, and he's off the couch like a shot, gesturing to Clint with hand signals he's not even sure are legible, but that he hopes mean "suit up". Clint flashes the first real grin he's seen since the Battle for New York and hops over the couch towards the elevator.

Tony's stranded, in trouble, doesn't sound that great with the weariness and the slurred speech and the way he can't seem to shut off his internal monologue, but he's alive and that is better news than anything Steve has heard in the last few hours. Steve is heading to the elevator as he listens to Tony's disjointed rambling about Texaco and terrorist attacks, nodding as Clint points to the roof and flashes him ten fingers, promising Tony that help is on the way.

The intangible thing that had been crumbling around Steve firms up again, and the horrible hollow in the pit of his stomach fades into background noise as he hangs up.

Tony's alive. He's messed up and half-dead and close to freezing in rural Tennessee and there's a terrorist out for his head… but he's alive, and he's reached out.

The Avengers can deal with anything that comes next.


	3. A Store in a Blizzard

Steve gets to the roof in record time. The quinjet's engines are whining and Clint is running his pre-flight checks in the cockpit. Steve stows his go-bag and the shield right beside Clint's bag and bowcase, and slides into the co-pilot's seat. Clint doesn't say anything, but gives him a sideways look as he flips toggles overhead.

Steve belts in and fixes an earpiece onto his left ear. In theory, he could probably fly one of these things but in practice it's better to let someone with actual experience take the stick. The last time he flew a plane, he crashed it into a glacier.

Clint shoots him another side-eyed look as he thumbs the switch for the rear door before returning his attention to the instrumentation and smoothly lifts off the pad on the roof. "How'd he sound?"

"Bad." Steve's never been one for pulling punches when they don't need to be pulled. He drums his fingers on his knee and stares out the window as the lights of New York streak beneath them. "His words were running together, and I don't think he knew really what he was saying."

Clint doesn't say anything right away, but Steve sees the muscle in his jaw tighten. Steve doesn't say anything either. They're both soldiers. They know the dangers of being undergeared in winter weather. Finally, Clint sighs and glances over again. "Did you leave a message for Bruce?"

"Slid it under the lab door on my way to the armory. I think he's still smashing up the containment room. Did you reach Natasha?"

Clint lifts one shoulder and drops it, eyes focused out the window. "She's on a job. I left her a message. She'll get it sooner or later." He doesn't volunteer Natasha's location, and Steve doesn't ask. It's better that he doesn't know.

The land below the quinjet is covered with clouds. Without landmarks, Steve can't tell how fast they're moving, but it feels like it's taking forever. He leans forward, scanning for any sign of the ground, but it's just gray and black out there. Deep in the back of his mind, he thinks of Arctic waters and the groan of shifting ice, and represses a shudder.

"Are we staying in civvies, Cap?"

Steve blinks, tilts his head, considers. He doesn't need to try and remember if he brought his uniform with him: it's always in his go-bag. The thought of going without a uniform on a mission, even a personal one, is odd and alien. He says, "Probably best if we try to do this covert. The Avengers are well-known, so we need to draw as little attention as possible."

Clint arches an eyebrow at him. "You think people aren't going to be able to tell that the tall, muscley blond throwing a shiny-ass shield is Captain America?"

Steve scowls, but can't deny he has a point. "Hopefully, it won't come to that."

Clint laughs, and adjusts some of the instrument settings. "Now you've guaranteed it will."

"Plans never survive first contact with the enemy," Steve says absently, and taps one of the keyboards on the navigation console.

"Ain't that the goddamn truth," Clint agrees.

Blue light glows, displaying a floating holo-map of the eastern seaboard. Using hand gestures and finger flicks he's still getting used to, Steve manages to adjust the map until it shows New York, the quinjet's route and position, and the location of the pay phone JARVIS pinpointed in western Tennessee. If he remembers his geography correctly, they're about to cross from West Virginia into Kentucky, meaning they're just about halfway there.

He centers on the area around the payphone's glowing dot, remembering to make a pulling gesture upwards over the map to get the topographical information. There's nothing in the immediate vicinity; it's just a fill-up station and a two-lane highway through lightly-forested terrain, fifteen miles from a small town that likely has a name but isn't labeled.

His brain is itchy, uncomfortable, because he doesn't know what he's going to find. He's undertaken missions on the sketchiest of intel before, but he never likes doing it. He's flying blind, more than usual here. He doesn't know if Tony's gotten involved somehow with the Mandarin, or if it all stems from that highly-publicized challenge Tony issued coming out of the hospital where Happy is recovering. He doesn't know if the Mandarin has agents looking for Tony, or if he thinks, like the rest of the world, that Tony is dead. It might be a trap. It might be exactly what it seems.

He doesn't like not knowing.

There's a soft beep from the console, and Clint reaches out to touch the tactile screen. "Weather alert," he says, eyes scanning the streaming data. "Looks like a blizzard warning. Heavy snow, high winds, freezing temperatures." His eyes meet Steve's for a moment, and there's something grim in them. Then one corner of his mouth lifts slightly, a sardonic smirk as fleeting as smoke. "Viking god on the team, never around when it would be really fuckin' handy."

Steve's stomach knots just an extra little bit, and he tries not to think of how Tony – not a supersoldier, not a Hulk, not an Asgardian, not an elite assassin with extreme weather survival training, but a normal human with a non-functional suit – will fare unprotected in a blizzard. "Remind me to write him up for it," he replies.

 **oOoOoOo**

The wind is already howling, snow a blinding slurry in the air, when the dot that is the quinjet meets the dot that is the phone booth. Clint is fighting it, fighting to keep the quinjet hovering steadily in the air, but it's swaying drunkenly. Clint is cursing a blue streak in at least four languages that Steve recognizes, threatening to do everything from disembowel the circuitry to letting Tony on a thirty hour engineering bender loose with a blow torch and a pair of pliers. (Steve can picture it, even without Clint's vivid description: Tony, hair mussed and eyes manic, jittering with coffee and crackling with upgrades.)

There's nowhere to land except the highway which, since they're trying to do this low-key, isn't an option. After a few seconds' consideration, Steve tells Clint to drop him off, and come back on foot once he's found a clearing to land.

Steve unbuckles his safety harness and stands, pulling himself to the back where the gear is stored. He kneels where he locked down his bag and shield, and is nearly thrown into the opposite bulkhead when the quinjet gives an almighty shudder and lurches suddenly left. He scowls towards the cockpit. "Hold it steady, Hawkeye."

"Trying," Clint replies tersely, then chuckles darkly. "This is what happens when you contract out to the lowest bidder to save a few bucks," he says. "Even SHIELD has their bureaucratic anal-retentive bean-counters."

"Cost-saving is important," Steve says, but his heart isn't in it because trying to gear up is proving to be aggravating with the floor leaping and dropping beneath his feet. Finally, he manages to grab the shield and a strap of his bag, and stands with only minor difficulty. Hauling himself towards the back door, he glances again towards the cockpit, and hesitates. He can only see the back of Clint's head, but his shoulders are tight and hunched. "Will you be able to find the station in this?"

Clint actually turns head and shoulders around, as far as his death grip on the yoke allows, and stares at Steve as if he just asked the world's dumbest, most ridiculous and insulting question on the planet. "Are youhigh? Get the fuck out of my plane."

"Technically, it's not a plane." Steve grins as Clint flips him off despite the sudden dip of the quinjet, and he palms the switch to open the doors. The cold screams in, blasting stinging snow into his face. "See you on the ground," he says, and jumps into the storm.

The quinjet disappears almost instantly into the driving snow, concealed behind the wind and flurries, leaving Steve to freefall alone. It isn't far to the ground, but it still takes him by surprise when the muffling white and black and grey gives sudden way to faint colored lights and gas pumps. He hits the ground fifty feet from the station and rolls, letting momentum disperse some of the force of impact.

He comes back to his feet in a crouch, shield on his arm and cold water trickling under his collar and down his spine. He's alert for any trouble that might be lurking under the cover of the storm and, though it kills him to do it, he holds still for five long breaths, waiting for an attack.

It doesn't come. Through the blowing snow, he can see the flickering Christmas lights in the window of the service station. Cautiously, he gets back to his feet and moves towards the station, still scanning for threats. Nothing but the wind, the snow, and the silent station.

The phone booth juts out of the snow, one side half-buried in a drift. Beside it, the helmet of the Iron Man armor is the only part of the suit visible. It's scored with scrapes and dents. Steve perks up, and picks up the pace, slinging the shield up onto his back. Worry gnaws at his stomach, a spin of mild nausea at the sight of the dark, dead eyes of the faceplate, but he crushes it beneath discipline and iron willpower.

"Tony!" he calls, trotting now. "Tony!"

There's no answer but the wind.

 **oOoOoOo**

It's cold, icy cold, and a distant part of Tony's mind makes a note to install insulation in the next model of armor, even though he knows he's never going to get the chance.

The nuke streaks across the water, the desperate prayer of last resort. Tony doesn't know who loosed it, but he knows if it hits the island, millions are going to die. The mercenary part of his brain understands the gesture, because weighed against the whole of the Earth, a paltry few million might be an acceptable sacrifice.

But the engineering part of his brain, a significantly larger portion, crunches the numbers at the speed of thought. It factors in the arc reactor in his chest and the enormous one currently powering Stark Tower. It factors in the spare reactors for his suits, the arc reactor Reed Richards contracted for the Baxter Building, half-built but still dangerous. The presence of the Tesseract and the nigh-incalculable energy pouring into the rift. Even without allowing for the variables of civilian, mundane power sources like gas reservoirs and electricity substations, the initial blast has to be…

His blood runs cold at the extrapolated blast radius and energy output his brain provides. He breaks from picking off Chitauri footsoldiers and does a tight spin in the air, blasting towards the nuke at top speed. His voice is tight as he reports the presence of the warhead, then grabs it and burns the boot repulsors incandescent to shove it through the narrowing rift above the city.

Stark, you know that's a one-way trip.

Should I try Ms. Potts, sir?

It's only a few moments in the portal, but they stretch into eternity. The suit's systems shut down, flickering and dying, leaving him alone. The cold creeps in, absolute zero, freezing the breath in his lungs, his limbs locking as he falls, his vision blurring, can't breathe can't shiver brain panicking did I succeed did I save the island did I—

I'd rather cut the wire.

He would laugh, if he had breath. Or time. In the end, he's the same idiot Cap is. Lying on the wire to let the entire population of Manhattan crawl to safety over his back.

The cold seeps into his bones and the last thing he sees is the warhead streaking towards the alien ship, explosions ripping through the sleek, predatory lines. Good, he thinks as his eyes close and brain arrests. I did that much.

Tony Stark dies alone, in alien space, a falling frozen statue of gold and red that used to be a man.

 **oOoOoOo**

Snow blows off a stacked drift beside the armor, uncovering dark hair and the curve of an ear. Steve reacts almost before he registers Tony's presence, hands plunging into the snow to shovel it away with broad sweeps, feeling the brittle-stiff-crackle texture of clothing left too long in the wet and cold. Tony emerges, pale and still and icy.

Tony's still breathing, Steve can see the faint mist puffing from his nostrils, but his skin is ice cold. Steve runs his fingers over the ashen skin of Tony's cheeks, and is relieved when it just feels like chilled flesh. Frostbite is unlikely, as long as he gets Tony warmed and dry as soon as possible.

He shoves his hands under Tony's armpits and hoists him up, relieved that he can feel the warmth of the arc reactor and the steady, if slow, beat of Tony's heart against his palms. Tony is dead weight in the fireman's carry over his shoulder. Steve's manhandled more awkward loads. For a moment, he debates waiting for Clint to show up, lead him back to where the quinjet is parked, but time is a factor when hypothermia is at stake. He moves to the door of the station and tries the knob, unsurprised to discover it's still locked. "Sorry," he murmurs, an advance apology to the absentee owner; with a twist of his wrist and judicial application of his superhuman strength, he snaps the locking mechanism of the door.

It's not much, as stores go, and seems to be primarily stocked to serve local day-trip hunters moreso than anyone happening to drive by. There are canned goods and freeze-dried rations neatly on the shelves, camping cookware hanging on the back wall, coolers stacked under the window and beer in the fridges. Steve finds a clear corner and sets Tony down, then stands to explore the shelves for anything he can use to warm Tony up.

There's a crackle of static in his ear, and Clint's voice is suddenly there, tinny below the sound of a storm around him. "Found a clearing, Cap. The storm's getting worse, though. I dunno if we'll be able to take off again until it clears. If Tony'd installed JARVIS, that'd be one thing, but no way I can—"

"Understood," Steve says, clipping the rambling short. He tears through the store like a determined, if polite and orderly, tornado, yanking paper towels packages and first aid kids off the shelves. "You should hole up in the quinjet," he says, as he finds a back room and kicks it open, pleased to find it contains a small, messy pile of what might be a worn patchwork quilt and folded heavy canvas.

"Nah," Clint says, but Steve can hear the undertone of an alert elite soldier. "Nothing like a brisk walk to get the heart pumping. 'Sides, at least one of us should make sure we're not going to have any surprise visitors, and you've got your hands full with Stark."

Steve shakes his head and snags the quilt and canvas from the back room. "Don't freeze to death," is all the advice he can think to offer as he returns to where he left Tony.

"Can't," Clint says cheerfully. "Nat'll kill me if I die on her. I'll let you know if I find anything. Or maybe I'll just shoot it. Anyway. Hawkeye out."

Steve shakes his head again and settles beside Tony, checking to make sure he's still breathing. He is, slow but steady. He's also no longer freezing, but there's a dangerous coolness to his skin that Steve doesn't like, especially now that the snow and ice are melting into Tony's clothing. Even out of the wind, there's no heat on in this little store; wet clothing is still a killer.

Steve pulls the heavy, garish poncho over Tony's head and tosses it away. It hits the floor with a sodden slap. Underneath, Tony is wearing a black tee-shirt Steve has seen him in a thousand times, the arc reactor glowing a soft blue through it. Bruising and thin scratches mar the skin of his forearms. Steve's lips thin as he works the wet cotton off Tony's torso, revealing more bruising along his ribs and a nasty gash over his stomach. Another scar to add to the mass of them calling Tony's chest home. Resisting the urge to swear – a common feeling around Tony – Steve breaks open the first aid kit and gets to work patching his idiot fellow Avenger up.

Using the paper towels, he dries Tony's skin as best he can, stripping wet socks and sneakers and jeans. He's done this before, back in the war, stripped and shared body heat with dangerously chilled squad members. His body temperature never falters. Half the Howling Commandos dogpiled around him at night in the mountains just to leech some of his heat.

His hands falter, though, fingers freezing on Tony's chilly hips, when the jeans come down and Tony is wearing Captain America boxers. Because of course Tony is wearing Captain America boxers. Steve stares in dawning horror at his own visage, determined grin and star-spangled spandex and winged helmet, caught in the act of throwing his shield, plastered over Tony's crotch.

Steve yanks his hands back and presses his fingers against the bridge of his nose, jarred and grasping for the artificial calm he had moments before. Tony isn't even conscious, and he's finding a way to get under Steve's skin. Sometimes Steve wonders if Tony's not a superhuman after all, if that's not Tony's superpower.

Man up, Rogers. He inhales sharply, lets it out slow. If only HYDRA knew that Captain America could be stopped dead in his tracks by Iron Man's underwear. There would be weekly raids on Tony's dresser drawers.

He finishes stripping and drying Tony, feeling only a little like a lobster fresh out of the pot. He manages to maneuver Tony onto the canvas, tucks the patchwork quilt over him, slides the half-used roll of paper towels under the back of Tony's neck to keep his head off the floor.

He ransacks the place again, taking care not to knock anything over, and digs a couple of rolled-up sleeping bags from under the front counter. He's zipping them together when he catches the faint hint of a foot crunching through snow, and he freezes. Carefully, he puts the sleeping bags down and reaches over his shoulder for his shield. Tony should be hidden behind shelving, but Steve is suddenly aware of how indefensible this place really is, if HYDRA or the Ten Rings or anyone else decided to attack this place in force.

The bell tinkles over the doorway and Clint steps through the door, bow in hand and shaking snow out of his hair. Steve straightens up, lowering the shield as he does so. Clint stares at him for a moment, and Steve stares back. Then Clint grins and goes back to shedding the snow coating him, and Steve picks up the sleeping bags he'd dropped.

"If Tony was followed," Clint says, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it over a nearby magazine stand, "they're doing the smart thing and holing up in town. There's no sign of anyone but us anywhere near here."

"Good," Steve says, and shakes out the sleeping bags over Tony and bends to unlace his boots. When he stands and turns, Clint is balanced on one bare foot, untying the laces of his other boot before pulling it and the sock beneath it off. He's eyeing Steve with a faintly challenging look, but Steve lets it pass without comment, and sets his own jacket aside, laying the shield within easy reach of the pallet.

In silence, the two of them undress. Steve folds his clothing and stacks them neatly on a low shelf, before sliding onto the makeshift sleeping mat, under the covers next to Tony. Clint pads over carrying his go-bag and his bow, his clothes haphazardly strewn on the floor behind him.

Steve is mortified to see that Clint, also, is wearing Captain America boxers. This pair blessedly does not feature his face, just his shield strategically placed in the front. Clint is shivering as he slides in behind Tony. "Fuck," he grumbles, dragging his bag to a spot he can use it as a pillow. "I don't know what's colder, this asshole or the storm outside. Oh well. In bed with Iron Man and Captain America. That's three items I can check off my bucket list."

Steve can't think of a thing to say, but he's pretty sure his mouth is opening and closing without any words coming out. Clint glances at him as he pushes and punches at his go-bag. "What?"

"Why is there Captain America underwear?" he blurts.

Clint's grin is easy and quick. "Because people get off on wearing you on their junk. It's like, patriotic or some shit. Don't worry about it. Tony's got it properly licensed and trademarked. We're all getting paid mad royalties for anything with our names and likenesses." He frowns a little. "He didn't tell you?"

Steve coughs and feels the burn of mortification flood into his cheeks and down his neck. "No. Does everyone have Captain America underwear?"

Clint's frown deepens. "Well… yeah. Thor thought it was a great team bonding gift. He was proud as fuck when he thought of it. He made his very first credit card purchase buying everyone on the team team-themed underwear. Didn't you get some?"

Steve shakes his head, distantly wondering how this is his life now.

Clint snorts. "Black Widow panties are seriously the most comfortable things you will ever wear," he says. "As long as you can stand to wear a thong, that is." He paused, just for a second, then goes blithely on, "You see, a thong is—"

"There are things I really don't need to know," Steve said hastily, and hunches down under the covers. Clint laughs quietly, but falls silent. Blessedly, blessedly silent. Steve watches the snow fall beyond the window, listening to the faint whine of high winds in the roof. Clint's breathing evens out into a steady, sleeping rhythm. Lulled by the quiet and the soft snoring beside him, Steve eventually sleeps himself.

 **oOoOoOo**

It's warm in the cave. Tony has burned, fire and ice, for weeks in here, caught in the delirium of fever and the violent shivering of chills. He hammers steadily at the armor, sweat running off him in rivulets with each clang of the anvil. Yinsen sits to his left, holding a picture of his family.

"Family is everything, Stark," he says quietly, so quietly, but Tony can still hear him over the steady rhythm of the hammer on metal. "And family is more than blood. Remember this, when you get back to America."  
"When we get to America," Tony corrects him, but he's distracted because it's time to put the armor on and fight their way free. Except now he's kneeling over Yinsen, and Yinsen is riddled with bullets, coughing up blood and smiling like everything is finally okay. Yinsen is practically family to Tony now; Tony doesn't want to lose anyone else.

"It's okay, Tony," Yinsen says, through bloody teeth. "This isn't your time. Go, before it's too late."  
And then Tony is fighting his way through endless waves of Ten Rings mercenaries and Chitauri invasion foot soldiers, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel and… wind? A motorcycle? A helicopter? He takes a step, and it's warm here now. The sound gets louder, even as the warmth tries to pull him back and—

Tony snaps awake, eyes popping open in an instant. For a moment, nothing makes sense, but he blinks and blinks, trying to clear the blurriness out of his vision. It refuses to focus, until it does and he realizes he's staring at someone's neck. Feeling floods into the rest of his body; there are limbs tangled with his. Someone is curled up along his back, an arm slung carelessly over his waist. Someone is also curled around him from the front, arm hugging his ribs. There's a nose in the back of his neck and legs slung over and through his, and hair tickling his forehead, two different rhythms of breathing surrounding him and—

Tony shifts experimentally, and whoever is behind him snuggles in closer. Yup. Someone's definitely happy to see him.

Over the shoulder in front of him, he can see the shield gleaming in the gloom, and the body plastered against his front is distinctly huge, muscly and furnace-hot. Also, one of the arms around his waist feels like it's still wearing a bracer. Unless he's managed to attract another archer at some point during his unconsciousness... It seems impossible to have done something like that, but Tony has endless stories about the impossible tasks he's pulled off when he's too sleep deprived or blackout drunk to remember what he did.

He thinks that passing out in the snow and waking up snuggled between Captain America and Hawkeye might just put the cherry on top of the already-iced weird-shit celebration cake, though.

Unable to spin any permutation of any equation that results in this outcome, Tony lets his head drop back to whatever had been pillowing it – oh, apparently Steve's other arm. Good to know – and closes his eyes again. "If this ends up on PornHub," he mutters, relaxing back into the warmth, "I'm going to be very upset."


	4. A Couple of Conversations

_**(I don't even frakking know, guys. This just got away from me and went weird places.)**_

 _ **ooooooo**_

Tony opens his eyes, because someone is waving hot coffee under his nose, and the smell of fresh, strong caffeine is better than smelling salts to him. He's up before his vision is clear, blinking blearily at the paper mug dancing in front of his face, swiping at it with a hand that only partially wants to respond to his commands. The coffee moves tauntingly backwards. Nose twitching and hand outstretched, Tony follows, the blanket sliding down his chest.

"Dude, pants," says Clint. "Then coffee."

Tony blinks again, and the hazy blob behind the coffee resolves into the archer, who is double-fisting coffee cups. Tony's pretty sure it's half-past the asscrack of too fucking early, but Clint looks bright-eyed and positively chipper. Tony wants to kill him on principle.

Shivering, he hauls the oddly-slippery blanket – a sleeping bag? – back over his shoulders and hunches into it, glaring vaguely in Clint's direction. His hands are freezing against his thighs, but he tucks his fingers under anyway, hissing at the bite. "Do I even want to know why I'm naked? Where are my clothes?"

In response, something soft smacks him in the face, hooking around head and hanging over half his face. Tony does his level best to laser-vision Clint where he stands with his free eye as he pulls whatever it is off his face.

Clint, damn him, doesn't spontaneously combust on the spot. He just sips his coffee, waggling the other tauntingly at Tony, and grins in a manner that can only be described as shit-eating. "You're cranky before coffee," he says. "And you're naked because a threesome in backwater fucking Tennessee just sounded like a really great idea."

"I hate you," Tony grouses, shaking out the things Clint threw at him. SHIELD-issue sweats, tee-shirt and hoodie. They're warm and dry, and deep in the hazy memories of last night, Tony remembers freezing his ass off. He might cry, except he doesn't want to give Clint the satisfaction. The bastard is holding his coffee hostage. "What, no underwear? I expected SHIELD to hand out tighty-whities to its agents."

"Only middle management get those. Helps them maintain the pinched look of disapproval." Clint sips his coffee as Tony hauls the pants under the blanket and wiggles into them. "How're you feeling?"

"Like a good little SHIELD agent. Must be the clothing." Tony shoves his head and arms through the appropriate holes in the shirt and fairly launches himself off the floor. It's cold and his feet are bare, but coffee is far more important than frostbitten toes. "Give me the damn coffee."

Clint holds it out and Tony has the lid off and the coffee half guzzled almost before Clint's hand clears the cup. "Jesus, Stark. Leave the fingers attached. I need 'em to pull the bow."

"I'll make you a prosthetic," Tony mumbles into the cup, and tosses back the rest. He runs a hand through his hair, knowing it's sticking up every which way and not giving a damn, and sighs as the warmth burns down his chest. "Is there more?"

Clint makes a broad, sweeping gesture to the other side of the store, where the ubiquitous metal canister sits beside racks of cups and slots filled with sugar packets and single-serving creamer. Tony makes a beeline for it, despite the slightly-just-above-absolute-zero temperature of the floor. He ignores the cups and just sticks his head under the spigot, pressing the button and letting the coffee flow into his open mouth. It's just this side of too hot, but kickstarting his brain is worth a burned tongue. He can hear Clint laughing at him, but fuck Clint anyway. Coffee is more important than dignity.

When he's feeling slightly more human, caffeine waking up sluggish neurons and swirling pleasantly in his blood stream, he straightens up and pours an actual cup like a civilized person. He pads back across the store, finally awake enough to take interest in his surroundings. It's a shitty little store. His interest quickly wanes. "You say threesome, Katniss, but it's just you and me here." He has a semi-clear memory waking in the wee hours to find a human hot water bottle with muscles wrapped around him. But there's no shield and no Captain anywhere in sight. "Where's Rogers?"

Clint lifts a shoulder and drops it. "He went out. The storm stopped an hour ago. He wanted to make sure that your new bosom buddies didn't follow you from California." Clint's gaze is speculative over his cup. "Life's not exciting enough for you, you have to go and piss off a terrorist organization?"

Tony waves a hand dismissively. "Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt that says 'I was held captive by the Ten Rings and all I got was this lousy arc reactor'. Are there socks? Is it out of line to ask for shoes? My feet are cold."

"You're so needy," Clint says, but tosses Tony both of the requested items. They, too, are branded with the SHIELD logo. Tony eyes them with disdain.

"I feel like I'm being sponsored by Fury and his band of merry paranoiacs," he says, bending to haul on the socks and shove his feet in the sneakers. "What's next, a secret decoder ring?"

"Speaking as one of those paranoiacs," Clint says, "I want to point out that it's only paranoia if they're not out to get you. And don't be ridiculous. Secret decoder rings are for kids." He swallows his coffee, tilting his head way back to drain it, then crushes the cup in his hand. "Real superspies have smartphones. There's totally an app for that."

"Steve Jobs was a hack and he had shitty taste in clothes." Despite all his protests to the contrary, Apple and its upstart products – personal computing and smartphones were StarkTech territory, dammit! – always triggers a Pavlovian response.

Clint snorts. "Says the billionaire who likes raggedy shirts from the 80s."

"Turtlenecks, Katniss, are a crime against humanity." Tony isn't sure, but he thinks he and Clint are bonding here over a shared love of snark and an inability to let a comment pass without attempting to one-up the other. Whatever. It's nice.

Before Clint can think of a suitable reply, there's a tinkling sound from the vicinity of the door. Seconds later, a frigid gust blows. Snatching at the hoodie he left over a shelving unit, Tony shrugs it on and turns as Steve steps through and shuts the door.

" _Honey_!" he cries, throwing his arms wide and pasting on his best I'm-Tony-Fucking-Stark-and-I'm-a-mad-scientist smile, the one he reserves for particularly obnoxious Teabaggers and Fox News reporters. "The _trois_ of our _ménage a_! Welcome back! We missed you."

Steve freezes in place, eyes as round as dinner plates. Tony can't tell if the pink in his cheeks is from the embarrassment or the wind outside, but it doesn't matter, because Clint is cackling like a lunatic behind him and Tony feels more like his normal, no-filters self than he has in a long time.

Really, it's all Steve's fault anyway. He should know that a well-rested, fully-caffeinated Tony Stark is a mere two loose screws away from supervillainy and world domination.

 **oOoOoOo**

"I need you to understand that nothing happened last night," Steve says for the seventh time.

"Uh huh," Tony says absently, around the screwdriver he's holding in his mouth.

Steve tries not to grind his teeth. Tony is only paying partial attention to him. The majority of his attention is on the damaged Iron Man armour lying disassembled in the back of the quinjet. He's turning the helmet over in his hands, peering into it with an expression that's somewhere between frustrated and fascinated.

"You had hypothermia," Steve says, after deciding to try a new tack.

"Uh huh," Tony says, and takes the screwdriver out of his mouth. He waves it vaguely towards the panel on the left. "Get the cables out of there for me, would you Cap?"

Steve takes a deep breath, counts to three, then counts to five, and goes to fetch Tony's damned cable.

He isn't exactly sure what Clint told Tony, but the words _threesome_ and _sexcapades_ are swirling through his head. The first, he knows. The second, well… he might not be a genius-level intellect, but he's pretty sure he can guess the not-so-cleverly-hidden meaning. He can still feel the back of his neck burning with embarrassment. He's no shrinking violet, but there's something deeply disturbing about the way Tony and Clint have been laughing about it.

He'd yell at Clint and demand he help Steve explain the situation they'd been in last night, but Clint decided discretion was the better part of valour, and discreted himself all the way into town to check for Ten Rings agents.

Tony's still got his hand outstretched for the cable. With a sigh, Steve drops it into his waiting fingers. Tony flips the helmet in his other hand, and scratches at the top with a thumbnail. "C'mon, you bastard," he mutters. "I will get a rotary saw, I swear to Fibonacci. Ah!" His eyes light up as a panel Steve couldn't even tell was there pops open, revealing a socket, and Tony busies himself slotting the cable into it.

Steve stares at him, growing increasingly frustrated. "Nothing happened," he says, for the eighth time. "We were just keeping you warm."

"Uh huh," says Tony for the ninth time, peering intently at the interior of the helm. His face dances with lights and he grins savagely as things begin whirring back to life. "That's better, baby," he croons, patting the scarlet metal gently. "Be good for Daddy and boot the fuck up."

"Tony…"

Tony scrubs a hand through his hair and sets the helmet aside. He reaches out, snags a gauntlet and drags it closer, making a face as the little finger falls off. "For fuck's sake," he grumbles. "I'm going to have to realign the fabrication platform. Shoddy, shoddy workmanship. I'm offended at myself."

Steve presses his fingers to his temples. "Tony."

Tony fits the finger plates back where they're supposed to go, straining to push it back into slot. Steve hears a faint click, and Tony grunts in satisfaction. He slides the entire piece onto his left hand, and uses the screwdriver in his right to start tinkering with the repulsor port in the palm.

" _TONY_!"

Steve's yell bounces around the interior of the quinjet, sounding much louder than it actually is due to the small space. Tony looks up with wide eyes, the full brunt of his attention completely on Steve now. Something crosses his eyes: irritation, maybe. Annoyance? Confusion? The flickers are too quick for Steve to positively identify. "What?"

Steve crouches down beside him, hands loosely dangling over his thighs. "Can you listen to me for a second?" he says, much more softly.

Tony sighs in exasperation and throws up his hands. "Fine, sure. It's obviously more important to you than me fixing my armour is. You know," he says, with a pointed glower, "the armour that neither Star Captain Glamour Pants nor Prince Merida the K-Mart Cupid saw fit to drag out of the _cold, wet, distinctly-not-electronic-friendly snow_."

Steve winces. He knew it would be a sore point the minute he left the store that morning and saw the helmet jutting out of the snowbank. "You were the priority, Tony," he says. "The armour wasn't—"

Tony continues speaking as if never interrupted. His eyes are flashing and his mouth twisting down in a very unhappy frown. "I have no idea how much of the internal circuitry is fried, or if the repulsors are salvageable, and unless I can get to an industrial supply store or, god fucking forbid, a Home Depot—" His eyes close briefly and he undergoes a full-body shudder; Steve thinks he whispers something like _diy stores, oh jesus the horrors_. "—I can't do a single thing about the giant target painted on my luscious, shapely ass. So tell me, Spangles. Tell me your _very important thing_ that can't wait until I at least get JARVIS the fuck back up and running and figure out why the everloving _fuck_ I'm in _Tennessee_ of all goddamn places in the lower forty-eight!"

Steve flushes, annoyance rising in his chest. The way Tony's glaring at him and the dismissive tone reminds him strongly of the very first time they met face-to-face on board the Helicarrier. It's the same tone he used to sneer at Steve: _everything special about you came out of a bottle_. He isn't sure how the conversation turned into them hissing and spitting at each other like hostile cats, but this isn't at all the way he meant it to go.

Tony's drumming his gauntleted fingers on his knee with a scowl of impatience. "Well?"

Steve should really let it go. At this point, it doesn't seem like it's at all important. Certainly not more important than making sure Iron Man is in shape to take the field. But he's come this far and he's prodded Tony long enough and hard enough that Tony's certainly not going to let it go now. In a rush of breath, his anger and annoyance deflates. He's just tired. "I wanted to talk about what Clint said about last night."

Tony's face goes quizzical, tilting a little to the left. "Okay," he says slowly.

"Nothing at all happened. I want to make sure you know that." Tony just blinks at him, almost as if he's not comprehending the words that are coming out of Steve's mouth. Steve isn't sure he can't blame him. He isn't sure if _he_ comprehends what's coming out of his mouth, or why it's so important for him to say it. "I just… want to clear it up, that's all. The world has changed a lot from how it used to be." He's floundering for words now.

A tiny smile plays on Tony's face. It isn't a mocking smile, or a mean one, but Steve still isn't sure he likes it. "Yeah," Tony says, sounding amused, "I know nothing happened, because one, you ooze honour like I ooze charm, and two, nothing that would be hurting if something had happened is currently hurting."

It takes Steve a moment to sort through that in his head, and then his face is flaming. Not even Erskine's science could take away the curse of the blushing fair-skinned.

Tony laughs, delighted. "You're adorable," he says. "Like cute forest animal adorable. Someone needs to get on creating some furry fanart of you. Maybe Jane Foster's crazy friend, what's her name, Darcy? Yeah, only met her once, but she seems like the kind of girl who writes fanfiction and turns her favourite superheroes into animals. The Anthro-vengers! I've got to get Marketing on that. We'll make a fortune in the plushie industry."

Steve sighs, feels a headache starting to come on even though he hasn't had a headache since Project Rebirth. He's going to name it _Tony_. "Is it too late for you to forget I ever said anything?"

Tony grins, wide and free. "Oh, far too late. You should just count yourself fortunate that JARVIS isn't online, or all of that noble, awkward-ass speech would have been recorded and filed away for future blackmail and/or hilarity." He must see something in Steve's expression, because the grin fades into a friendly smile. "Don't worry, Cap. I'm pretty sure that, even if you were inclined, you're not the sort of guy to take advantage of a friend who's injured and unconscious." He winks. "Not to say I'm not a little curious. Maybe under different circumstances. You're on my freebie list, after all."

Steve knows he shouldn't ask. He's almost completely certain Tony is just joshing him now, taking advantage of the situation to needle him and get under his skin. He knows he shouldn't ask, but he really can't help himself. "Freebie list?"

Tony turns his attention back to the gauntlet on his left hand. "You know, a freebie list. A list of people, mutually agreed upon, that do not count as cheating on your partner, should you have the chance to have wild monkey sex with them."

In the six months and change Steve's been awake, he's had to wrap his head around a great many things. He prides himself on being adaptable, on keeping his footing in a world that should have left him behind decades ago. Under the circumstances, he thinks he's done a bang-up job of realigning to the 21st century. He can change with the times, he can roll with the punches. There's nothing he can't figure out or come to terms with.

Except that.

No, Tony's offhanded, blithe admission is making his brain seize up. Why the _hell_ —

Tony glances up, and the grin returns. "Oh, don't look at me like that, Cap," he says. "I'm pretty sure you're on everyone's freebie list." His face goes distant, pondering, for just a second. "Agent Agent was such a fanboy, you were probably on his. I know you're on Clint's. Brucie is terribly heteronormative, though, so probably not his. And you never can tell with the murder queen. Her thighs of death alone might be enough to put you off. Thor's not even from this world, but Asgardians have never struck me as the conservative type."

He bends his head over the repulsor port again, and Steve wishes he'd just shut the hell up, but he's in that chatter cadence now, and there's no force in the universe that can keep Tony quiet when he wants to speak. "I know you're definitely on Pepper's, though. How did she put it? Right. 'That man is sex on legs. I'd climb him like a jungle gym in a heartbeat.' You didn't hear that from me though. She'd ruin me sixty thousand ways if she knew I told you that."

There's a high-pitched noise from somewhere. It rings in his ears and sounds like a distressed puppy. It takes Steve a moment, one horrific mortifying moment, to realize it's coming from him.

Tony looks up again, and this time it's with sympathy. He reaches out to pat Steve on the shoulder. "Don't clutch your pearls so tightly, princess," he says with a fond smile, before turning back to his armour. "You don't want to break your pretty necklace."


	5. Interlude: The Hawk

_**(This was supposed to be longer, and eventually will be. But brilliant mind that I am, I managed to fracture my dominant index finger, and I can't type very well with it splinted. Instead of making y'all wait, I'm posting the section I managed to get completed, while I very painstakingly keep plucking away with a hand basically out of commission. Enjoy! :))**_

 **oOoOoOo**

Clint has suspected he's hellbound for quite some time.

It isn't all the blood on his hands. It isn't the red in his ledger. It isn't the dubious missions he's undertaken as an agent of SHIELD, going where he's told and doing what he's told for years. It isn't the failed marriage or the countless lies he's told or the cons he pulled as part of the circus.

It isn't even that he ended up under Loki's mindfuck device, slavishly devoted to the Asgardian equivalent of a disgruntled Hot Topic employee with a library of daddy issues and an obvious, raging boner for his boisterous, blond and muscled adopted brother. He knows it's not his fault. Mind control is a bitch. There wasn't anything he could do. He's forgiven himself for it.

(Except for Phil. He still can't really forgive himself for Phil. Logically, he knows he isn't at fault for all those deaths on the Helicarrier. He isn't responsible for Phil's death. SHIELD has deprogramming protocols and top-notch therapy for hostile mental influence, and he's availed of them often enough that he's mostly through the horrible guilt and shame. But logic goes off the rails when it comes to Phil. Logic doesn't even have a hand on the wheel when it comes to Phil. Guilt is driving that fuck-train to Faultville. Clint can't do anything but ride along.)

Clint Barton will end up in hell for one singular reason.

Because he's a sadistic little shit-disturber.

His sins are myriad. He's Naired Ward's shaving cream. He's short-sheeted Sitwell's bed. He's fed Tony generic-brand decaf and sworn it was French roast straight from Columbia. He rigged Banner's cherished vanilla Coke with a Menthos-primed cap (then lurked in the vents to witness the fruits of his labour). He even once managed to get into Fury's personal cell phone and changed the ringtone to "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" from that stupid show with the talking vegetables.

But really, no sin is so heinous as the one he just accrued telling poor, sweet, innocent, trusting Steve Rogers with his giant doe eyes that he'd better make sure Tony knew Steve wasn't coming onto him. Because everyone knows Tony Stark's reputation as a manwhore, even though he's monogamous these days, and well, gosh darn it, Cap, if you crawl naked into bed with someone, you better let them know that you have no designs on their virtue, or the next thing you know, you're you're up to your eyeballs in sexcapades and then you end up in divorce court arguing over the cat and you won't quite know how you got there.

It's mean and it's cruel, but Clint is tired and bitter and angry, and it's either do shit like this, or go psychotically off his fucking rocker eighteen times a day. It doesn't even matter in the long run, and he knows it. He was fairly certain Stark had a wicked sense of humor beforehand, and this morning's snark-fest only confirmed that, so he'll just think it's goddamn hilarious. And Steve Rogers is far too good a man to hold grudges. The most Clint will have to face is his disappointed expression, and he's pretty sure even Captain America's disappointed expression can't hold a candle to Coulson's.

(Coulson _would_ be disappointed, and that's where the guilt and anger comes screaming back. But fuck Phil anyway, since he decided to up and die on Clint. Who fucking needs him?)

(Clint does. Fuck.)

He's coping. He _is_. He might not be doing it particularly well from time to time, but he's muddling through as best he can, and he's _fine_ with it. And anyone who says differently can eat a great big heaping helping of frosted fuck-offs from a rusty spoon.

If he's being honest with himself, though, it wouldn't really take much to tip him right over the edge into supervillainy. His anchor got cut, and now he's adrift in a sea of misplaced anger and repressed grief, no matter how many counselling sessions he goes to. He internalizes too much, he knows that. The Clint Barton walking down this shitty two-lane road towards a town that's barely a dot on the map isn't the same Clint Barton that laughed in golden sunlight on a beach in Tahiti and traced the planes of his partner's chest with his tongue. He's colder, smaller, vicious like a cornered honey badger, with deadly aim and a repressible moral compass.

He figures he's in good company for that, though. The Avengers are all royally fucked up. Each and every single gloriously traumatized bundle of raw nerves and nightmare memories walks that razor's edge with him between doing what's right and succumbing to pain. He runs it down in his head, knowing just how fucking easy it would be to nudge them in succession, until they fall like dominos into the abyss.

Banner is one temper tantrum away from levelling a large swath of Manhattan; all he needs is a papercut on the wrong day or one too many nights of missed sleep. Banner's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness. His iron control of his anger is a constant thing, but when it slips, he can't wrestle it back. The Hulk is too strong. Clint can access any number of drugs and substances that blend undetectably with the herbal tea Banner likes so much, concoctions brewed to loosen inhibitions and send the heart racing. He could have the Hulk out in a snap, unleashed on an unprepared populace.

Nat's a former Soviet prodigy of the Red Room supersoldier project, and if Clint has blood on his hands, then there's a veritable fucking ocean on hers. He's never seen anyone with as much natural talent at infiltration, nor anyone as flexible and deadly acrobatic. Nat has mastered shutting down her emotions, letting the Widow take her. Clint knows her better than anyone. Her buttons are buried deep, but he knows her better than anyone still living on the planet, could find them if he really wanted to, nudge them around, bring the real Black Widow back out of the dark, dim recesses of Nat's subconscious.

Tony's mental state, by all half-assed observation, is increasingly delicate; poke him in the right spot, manipulate that genuine desire to make the world a better place, and his genius intellect, ability to instantaneously absorb new fields of expertise and nigh-supernatural ability to build whatever offensive armaments and weapons of mass destruction suit his fancy out of _goddam scrap metal and fucking chicken wire_ guarantees a swift conquering of the entire earth if he desired it.

Thor, for all his geniality and good cheer, has some deep fucking shadows in his eyes; he's insecure about his worth to carry the hammer, probably has PTSD from whatever that freakshow metal man in New Mexico was, and the wells of his guilt over Loki's actions are _fathomless_. Out of all of the Avengers, Thor would be the most troublesome to tip over, but Clint knows he could do it.

And good old apple-pie and American-flag Steve Rogers has absolutely fucking _zero_ connection to the world beyond the walls of Avengers Tower. He doesn't recognize the city he lives in; literally everything he knows is ancient history, and the vast majority of his generation are dust and ash. Steve drowns in the 21st century, though he does his best to hide it, struggling to keep his head up above the choppy water. Clint's pretty sure he could find the leverage to keep his head under just long enough that _anything_ will feel like a relief to stop the nihilism from creeping back.

God fucking help the world if the Avengers ever fell to their shadows and inner demons. That's all he's going to say. They're the only thing keeping each other up. If one goes down, they all go down.

Sometimes, Clint scares himself. Because he knows how easy it would be. His code name isn't Hawkeye for nothing. He's a mouthy little shit, bristling with attitude and smarting off to whoever is in earshot half the time… but that just makes people forget how _observant_ he is. They forget that, ninety percent of the time, they never see him. For all he's loud and obnoxious and attention-demanding, when he is working, he is one of the deadliest, elite assassins on the planet. No one sees him coming. Half the time, no one sees him at all. First rule of ground-dwelling species? They rarely look _up_ , and that's where Clint spends the majority of his time. Ceiling vents, tree branches, rooftops. Anything with a clear line of sight and a rise of over twenty feet is safe ground for him.

He'd be _unstoppable._

 _Are you with me, Barton?_

Clint stops dead in the middle of the road, closes his eyes, and sucks in a deep breath. The cold air bites his nose, sears down his throat and chills his lungs, and for a second, it feels like there's a hand resting on the back of his neck. "Yeah, Phil," he mutters. "I'm with you." He opens his eyes and keeps moving.

It's dangerous, this game he plays with himself, but it's the only way he gets to hear Phil's voice anymore. He's gone down the rabbit hole a few times in his career, when thoughts were too dark and volatile, when bad memories overcrowded happy dreams. When crawling into a bottle seemed like a good idea, or running off on a suicide mission. Every time, Coulson was there to pull him out, with a quiet word and a gentle touch.

Every time, except every time that came after Loki.


End file.
